“All right, well, off I go again. If you need me, call Sarah,” Rossy announced, raising his teacup to all of us before disappearing again.
I sighed. “Hot or iced?” I asked Maria, trying not to look at the blond man. He looked nothing like Hayes, yet his very presence made the sting resurface. This man’s hair was wild; Hayes’ was short and perfect. The man had brown eyes, and they had nothing on Hayes’ green ones. The man was also pale. Hayes was not pale. Top Gun looked like he’d been kissed by the sun. No matter what time of year it was, his skin was golden. Everything about him seemed golden and perfect.
Except it wasn’t.
It was all a lie.
Chapter Two
Hayes
“You’ve been in here all day.”
I didn’t bother looking up from the pile of paperwork in front of me. “Been busy all day,” I replied to Grayson as I jotted down a note about my current client in the margins, the red inksmearing on the paper. “God dammit,” I muttered, tossing the pen into the trash can. “Who bought these fucking pens?”
“That would be Ash.”
I yanked the paper out of the file, unable to stand the red blot of ink.
I would have to start over.
If I didn’t, then it wouldn’t be perfect.
Our clients spent too much money on Red Snake for it to be less than.
As I stood, heading to the shredder in the corner, I kept my head down. I couldn’t look at him. Not yet. Not after the line I crossed last night. “You need something?” I called out over my shoulder.
In my periphery, I could see that he was leaning against the doorframe, hands in his pockets.
“Yeah, I need my business partner to stop working for two fucking seconds and look at me,” he clipped.
I stiffened, my back to him, the damaged paper hovering over the shredder, the low hum of it filling the silence. “Got a lot on my plate, Gray,” I said, my voice low. “Twelve new clients have called this week.”
Grayson and I owned Red Snake Investigations. Though I let him be the face of it, as I was more useful running things outside of the spotlight. We met over a decade ago, just after I’d gotten out of the Air Force and he’d retired from the Marines. We were both washed-up soldiers with too much pent-up rage and no place in the world after experiencing the hells of war. So we carved out our own place, putting our skill sets to good use, along with Ash’s, Dominic’s, and Jake’s. Our home office had been in Charlotte, North Carolina, with a secondary office in Denver, Colorado. After Grayson and Carrie fell in love, we all agreed to move our home base to Portland, which was just under two hours away from the coastal town of Astoria. Carrieand Grayson went through some shit about a year ago. Shit that I didn’t want to ever think about because those thoughts usually lead back to Astoria, to the little bookstore where Carrie worked, and then to the woman who’d managed to rock and destroy my world all in a matter of eight fucking hours. She’d been tangled up in said shit, blindsided by the horrors of Carrie’s past, and she’d nearly gotten hurt. If I hadn’t been there—gotten there when I did—she, along with Carrie and their boss, Sarah, would’ve been dead.
My jaw tightened at the thought, remembering the thousand-yard stare slashed across her beautiful face when I’d finally located them.
“I understand that,” Gray said, yanking me from my thoughts. “But we have to talk about last night.”
I watched the paper get sucked into the shredder, the blades slicing it apart, erasing the mistake I’d made.
Fuck, but if it were only that simple.
“Last night?” I repeated, turning around to face him. “What about last night?”
Gray’s dark eyes scanned over me, his bearded jaw tight. My eyes dropped to the brace around his knee. After he was shot in the leg, he had lost the ability to run, which meant he was chained to a desk. No more hunts. No more missions. Though all the guys knew he fucking hated it, we all silently agreed that it was for the best. Now, he only came into the office three days a week, working from his home in Astoria the other four. “You were in Astoria,” he stated, his voice gruff.
My spine snapped as straight as it could go. “Yes.”
He raised a brow. “You were in Astoria,” he repeated.
“Gray, that’s already been established,” I reminded him, trying my best to keep my voice level. “What about it?”
“Are you okay?”
No.
No, I wasn’t fucking okay.